


A Fine Lady

by woodsong_1978 (Vae)



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-18
Updated: 2008-04-18
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vae/pseuds/woodsong_1978
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Xiexie to <a href="http://lvs2read.livejournal.com/profile"><img class="i-ljuser-userhead"/></a><a class="i-ljuser-username" href="http://lvs2read.livejournal.com/"></a><b>lvs2read</b> for the beta check.</p><p><b>Prompt:</b> Jayne is a hero; she finds something out about Jayne; humor</p>
    </blockquote>





	A Fine Lady

**Author's Note:**

> Xiexie to [](http://lvs2read.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://lvs2read.livejournal.com/)**lvs2read** for the beta check.
> 
>  **Prompt:** Jayne is a hero; she finds something out about Jayne; humor

“Kaylee?”

Nuh huh. No way. Not moving. Not moving an inch. She'd got up there, and now she couldn't get down. Not yet. Not until it was _gone_.

“Kaylee, gorramn it, girl. You coming or...?”

Heavy footsteps. Oh, God, heavy, and she didn't dare call out for fear of disturbing it. It might move again, and she didn't have anywhere else to go. No way to escape. It was between her and the door. Muscles trembled in her legs, tight with the tension of not moving. Not moving an inch.

“You even in there?”

The hatch clicked open, unnaturally loud, paced by the beating of her heart. By the harshness of her breaths, uneven and shallow, drying her mouth. “Yeah...” It came out as a shadow of her usual voice, thin and reedy.

“I said I'm taking you dancing, ain't your part to go backing out on me now, just 'cause you got...” Jayne trailed off, staring at her. “What the gui you doin'?”

She was doing a fair amount of staring herself. Jayne sure did look fine all smartened up, his hair smoothed down and his beard fresh trimmed. A shirt she vaguely recognized all buttoned up fancy, sitting smoother than she'd have thought over all them muscles. Shaking her head to get hair out of her face, she glanced back at the floor. Yeah. Still there. “I got _company_ ,” she said, a little desperately, hoping that Jayne's footsteps wouldn't wake it. If it was asleep. If it even _did_ sleep.

Jayne followed her gaze, looked back at her, and then at the floor again. “You're kidding me, right? Little thing like that, probably more scared of -”

“Jayne Cobb, if you try telling me that thing's more scared of me, well then, you tell me why it ain't made a break for it since it can get to the gorramn door!” That was better. Stronger. Not exactly happy, but then, there were a few things to be not happy about. Like her visitor that weren't Jayne.

And it weren't so much a little thing, neither.

She tucked her knees up tighter under her chin, and glared. “You just...”

A loud clack interrupted her as a metal cup slammed down over the intruder. Base down. None of that trapping fei hua, just one firm strike, and no more problem. Though now she had spattered ick on the floor of her bunk.

Jayne ground the cup down one more time, just to be certain-like, and grinned at her. “Y'can come down now.”

She wasn't so sure about that one. Weren't sure her arms would unlock. Because that was when reaction set in, and hell, such a silly thing. Such a little thing. Nothing to get scared of, right? Except she did and Jayne saw it and now he'd be laughing at her and -

The mattress dipped next to her, deep enough to topple her balance, and a warm, heavy arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Come down,” Jayne repeated. Not that she could, now, not without moving away from his arm or his body and she'd got a pretty strong partiality for being close to his body. “Yesu, girl, thought you had more to you'n to need rescuing from a bitty bug.”

Well, of course _now_ it was a bitty bug. Now it was all squished into her floor and not _moving_. “It ain't just a bug, it was a spider.”

“Spider's a bug, same as any other.” He shrugged, arm sliding about her shoulders. Hand sliding kind of lower, and she weren't quite sure it was an accident. “Now Jamie used to make a good old carry on at a spider. Even little bitty ones like yours. Screaming and hollering 'til you'd think the day of Judgment come rolling on in.”

Kaylee rested her head against his shoulder, and listened to his voice, low, steady rumble, paced by the low, steady beat of his heart. “Who's Jamie?”

Tension shifted muscle, roughing cotton against her ear. “She was my brother's lady. All dainty and pretty, shipped out from the Core. Lasted two years 'fore she failed of the winter, died birthing Mattie, and he ain't never been hale.” He paused, fingers digging into her ribs. “And scared of a bitty spider, just like you, Kaylee Frye. Now, I reckon that makes you a fine lady.”

Squirming away, on account of how those fingers tickled more than a mite, she arched a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Bugs makes me a fine lady?”

He nodded, grinning, and followed her, weight resting on powerful arms as she leaned back and he kept right on following, until her head hit the pillow and he was stretched over her, never touching, just over her with that wolfish grin. “Fine ladies go out dancing when their menfolk have made the effort to get duded up to take 'em. Care to dance, Miss Fine Lady?”

Kaylee grinned right back, hooked her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, and tugged, heedless of the ex-spider across the room. That wasn't going to be moving no more, and she sure was. “I ain't no fine lady, Jayne. Prairie girls got ourselves better ways of appreciating our menfolk.”

And, it seemed, ways menfolk had no problems with, neither.


End file.
